Saltwater
by function
Summary: The Vaultie tries to wrangle her companion into her penchant for pain. M for language, violence, sexual things.
1. Chapter 1

She pushed her blade open with her thumb, admiring the smooth movement. There were few things that gave her pleasure anymore, but the way her knife opened from its safe compact origin was always satisfying. She drummed the knife against the thick leather padding on her thigh, a twitchy idiosyncrasy she developed while growing up in Vault 101. When restlessness sank into her bones and when anger billowed through-each of her hands became impatiently idle. They stirred and fiddled, searching desperately for release of the winding energy inside.

"Fuck, it's cold," she muttered. But that didn't stop her freezing fingers from working the blade rather than be shoved into her pocket. Charon followed like a shadow, eyes on everything but her. She was wandering again. Whether for the exercise or the kills, he wasn't sure. He didn't mind the wasteland hike, the seemingly unending journey. He just didn't like how she acted when it was over, scrubbing her blood-stained hands with Abraxo, grunting and scratching at them until they were raw and chapped. Even when her own blood seeped out of the tender skin pulled taut on her knuckles, she'd scrub. Her eyes would water and she wouldn't stop until her hands cramped and shook.

She had learned not too long after being forced out of the vault that cleaning blood from gloves was harder than from her own hands. Her pip-boy glove was shredded and only wires remained wrapped around her palm.

It had only been a week since she watched her father kill himself, screaming behind a glass wall in a cloud of radiation. A week since she'd told Dr. Li to go fuck herself and her Project Purity. Did her father really think he was some kind of hero-some kind of saint that would save the world with pure water? Was her existence so insignificant in his life that he could just abandon her in the vault? And as soon as she found him could just kill himself to be rid of her completely? Somewhere inside, she knew it wasn't about her, but she wasn't ready to hear that honesty just yet.

No, she wanted to vent the all-consuming rage that had ingrained in her skin. Let it gush out like a wound. It surprised her how little her wandering helped. In the vault, she was content to run out her frustrations, beat the punching bag in the gym for a while, fuck Wally Mack. But out in the wastes, the lack of walls were equal to her lack of containment. Her rage wasn't so easily found and released. It required a more extensive search and a more extensive extraction. It would jump around from nerve to nerve, limb to limb. By the time she'd kick her leg, it would already be bundling in her fists. It infuriated her, to say the least.

Charon tried to avoid the growing tension in her gait. Her arms trembled from something other than the weather. He watched her shake her head, grunting, gripping her knife a little too tight. She popped open the scabs on her knuckles, blood starting to drip and soak her fingers as she tapped her thigh. He was waiting for her to break apart, mangle herself from carelessness. Smoothskins were so fragile and weak. And this one in particular was pleading for the wasteland to beat her, destroy her, show her her place. He wanted to shake her and scream at her, because it wasn't just her ass on the line. He was being threatened as bad as she-he was contracted as her protector after all. But she glared at his warnings, so he resorted to grumbling instead.

This gray chilly day was different, though. She was parading herself, practically waving flags to call danger to her.

"You seem upset, smoothskin," he stated with solidified syllables.

He nearly flinched when she stopped and turned to him, knife too close to his face. Her lip twitched, but no words came out. Through her goggles, her brown eyes were bloodshot and swollen. Had she been crying?

She gasped, almost letting a word slip from her throat. The wind had loosened curls of hair from her thick braid. Her dry swollen lips were bleeding where she had apparently been chewing them. She was a pathetic mess. Maybe Charon was too old and too numb to understand grief anymore, but he couldn't let go of his disgust for her in that moment. Was killing herself (and him included) the only way she would deal with her father's death? The vaultie wasn't even brave enough to do it herself. She had to go out and find a firefight instead of just taking that fucking knife of hers to her chest.

Charon stared down at her, expressing his distaste with a tense furrow of exposed muscles in his face. He would have flared his nostrils if he still had a nose. She gripped his arm tight, digging her jagged nails into the muscular cords of his tricep. She tried to break the surface.

"What is it?" he warned.

Her thoughts drifted back to the Vault. She was jogging one morning, pissed off at Paul for coming clean to Wally about her cheating on him. But she and Wally weren't exactly together when she had hooked up with Paul. They had been in their "off" period in their wildly off and on relationship. The drama was petty compared to her new life on the outside, but ending on bad terms with Wally had really screwed her over. Half the vault were his relatives.

She could have jogged in the gym, could have avoided the guards on patrol, she could have not jogged at all. But she must have wanted a fight because her feet took her down to the lower levels, knowing full well that Stevie Mack, Wally's older brother, would be down there.

She regretted her decision as soon as she saw Stevie around the corner. His eyes went dark when he caught sight of her, a sick smile on his lips. He blocked her path with his arms out.

"You think you can just fuck around on my brother and not deal with the consequences?" he asked. She rolled her eyes and tried to make her way around him. He twisted her wrist and pulled her back.

"Go away, Stevie. Leave me alone."

"That's_ Officer Mack_, you cunt." The force with which he shoved her against the wall finally allowed fear to wake her up. Tell her that she had made a really dumb choice. A fight with Susie, Wally's sister, would have made more sense. But no, she had to go with Stevie, the sadistic fuck too high on power.

She was two years into her training as a little league coach, which was less about sports and more about fitness. But lifting weights, running, kicking a sand bag—they didn't prepare her for a real fight. Because when Stevie punched her in the stomach, she nearly vomited. She choked on nothing, gasping for air while her diaphragm was too stunned to function. With a foggy focus, she pulled his ankle hard enough to bring him down. Another mistake, because all he did was get angrier. The floor was surprisingly cold, she learned after he slammed her face into it with a smack. It caused her to bite her cheek, filling her mouth with a warm copper taste.

It must have been a bad day to confront him, because he pinned her, her arms crushed beneath her own body. He breathed deep, collecting himself and calming his thoughts. Pain. Pain and fear encompassed her as he pushed a finger into her side. One hand muffled her screams while the other searched her bones for the next pressure point. It was nauseating. The flourescent lights only made her sicker. In the blur of her tears, it reminded her of her father and the washed out lights of his clinic. Only this time he was paying attention and giving her what she deserved.

His fingers sent dull shocks to her body, channeling through her bones. Coughs and groans barely escaped the hand on her mouth. He punctuated a lesson with each press of his finger, warning her to stay away from Wally and the rest of his family. She still didn't understand why he had put so much effort into hurting her. He was particularly off that day and she was particularly fucked because of it.

She was disappointed and grateful when Stevie finally stopped and kicked her one last time before returning to patrol.

"Go wash that blood out of your mouth and _keep it clean_."

She knew what he meant. But she had wanted a fight, not a one-sided shitshow. It took ten minutes until her body stopped shaking uncontrollably and her breathing found a steady pace.

She eyed Charon with her hands still digging into his arm. It wouldn't be a threat on his life, just a little poke and prod to get him going. Maybe he would understand what she wanted. Just a little round of fisticuffs to set her body free. To prove it, she closed her knife and put it back in her pocket. She let her backpack fall—a sudden breeze chilling her back.

He didn't move. He kept his arms to his side as she disarmed. This little vaultie was turning to him of all people. He refused to be the outlet of her frustrations. She had been playing too loose with his contract anyway. She never had as much control as she thought.

It took three seconds to throw her down and secure her in a half-nelson, his hand pushing her face to the ground. His other arm gripped hers, nearly pulling it from the socket. He agonized her neck and shoulders, not bothering to hold back his strength. She groaned low and heavy while her body rippled. Loose dirt flew in with a sharp gasp of breath.

"Do not even try it, smoothskin. I am not your fucking therapist," he growled directly in her ear, making sure she heard it through the sputtering coughs.

She tugged her arm, broke his leverage, and scrambled from beneath him. He rose slowly and watched her remove her goggles. She looked desperate with mud smudged on her olive skin, dirt lining her teeth. Wiping her aggravated eyes did nothing to improve her appearance.

"Fuck you, Charon," she choked out.

"I'm not the one trying to get us both killed."

"I'm not trying to get us killed, asshole."

He grunted because words would have been a waste of breath for the circular conversation she was starting. The little vaultie was always pushing her limits, always trying to find a rise out of people. And she was somehow getting away with it and even getting praised as a wasteland savior. It was bullshit. Complete bullshit. This irradiated world was not that easy to live in and he was waiting for her to learn that before he had to teach her himself.

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><p><em>AN: Welp, I'm going for it. My second Charon-fic, which I've already decided is much better than my first (especially considering that it was my first fanfic ever). I was going to use this for a kinkmeme fill, but now I'm not sure where it's going. Reviews, please!_


	2. Chapter 2

Gray. Her world had always been gray. From the bleak walls of the vault to the steel furniture. From the tin dishes to the antique slides blinking from the classroom projector. No matter how many posters or paintings she would hang in her bedroom—gray. The only difference in the outside was the softness of the sky. Thick clouds coated the world like a blanket, only lacking the heat and security of such a comforting object. The earth was brittle. The useless dry hills freckled with stumps of petrified trees. The further from the Potomac, the thirstier it was. It wasn't quite sand. Underneath the surface, clumps of dirt clung to moisture the same way a parched wastelander clung to a bottle of water. Her God slowly turned into her father's God and later into a myth she had grown up taking for truth.

The people were just as gray. The lights that simulated the sun in the vault barely brought color to the palest inhabitants. Those that were naturally dark, brown, olive, tawny—their skin lacked luster and flush. Those on the outside were wrought with disease, covered in dirt, blemishes, boils. The irradiated food and water left them sickly and green. But the most foreign and juxtaposed green. Not the lush organic hue printed on pages of trees and other botanical illustrations. Not the saturated color that spilled from a fresh paint can. No. It was the most unnatural and wilted version of green that mushed into gray on wastelanders' skins.

Along with the gray was the cold. Her life was always cold. It lacked heat, movement of atoms, friction. A metallic vault, though a perfect conductor, was comprised of quiet electrons and protons that barely nudged their neighbors. It was the reason she ran and the reason she fought. The cold rang like a chord across her skin, vibrating and closing in. She made her own sweat. She was hungry for energy and vitality. Any of her fights or arguments were sparks to the desire for blaze. Outside was lawless. No one had limits. No one stopped the brawls. Choose life or choose death. No in-between. Probably the only thing that lacked gray. Heat on the outside was only through fire and the burning of old world leftovers. Nearly everything was old. Nothing new. Always borrowed and always used. There were traders that brought in pristine guns and ammo from far up north, from The Pitt. But what did that really bring but more silence to an already muted world?

Blood was different. It was bright, alive. It was warm and brilliant as it poured from the bodies of the gray. She liked blood and how desperate people were to keep it. _Don't lose too much. _It caused hallucinations, a vacuum of sound. Blood was life. The opposite of gray. The opposite of dull. She wanted something alive like that. She wanted to feel the thick red liquid and see it coat her skin.

But that meant death and carnage. And it always dried too dark, blending with the gray again. She was sickened by what it meant to destroy existence-to end the story of another desperate soul. Was she a killer? No. That was not the right question. Of course she was a killer, but was she meant to be? Was she raised to massacre? If she laid down a map of her genes, looked at paths and patterns, was killing drawn into her geography?

There was a mix of terror and pleasure when she killed Silver for Moriarty to get information on her father's whereabouts. She had put her pistol to the woman's chest and fired three quick shots. _There was the red_, the dense crimson liquid poured from her wounds. She stared down, fascinated by the woman's frozen face and the slight twitches of dying nerves. Residual sparks firing off synapses. It wasn't the first human life she took, but it was the first she watched fade away. When Silver evacuated, she tied fabric around her nose and mouth to avoid the smell. Her gut ached and her body shook from the guilt. Someone ceased to be because of her, because of the gun in her hand. It wasn't even self-defense like when she had to escape the vault, shooting back at the crazed security officers. It was murder. _But there was the red. _The beautiful reverberant color she loved so dearly. It was existence in liquid form. She poked a trembling finger into one of the bullet holes, hypnotized by the torrid sensation. Moments later vomiting on the dry wooden floor.

She cleaned her hands in the sink before rinsing out her mouth. She risked a blood-borne illness every time she made contact. Her father had spent years going at her for how she bit her nails. After Silver, it was never a problem again.

She was twelve when she had her first period. After excusing herself from class, she sat alone in a bathroom stall with fingers drenched in her own menstruation. She had never seen so much blood. It was dark and thick. Vivid. It was the most vivid thing she had ever seen. She was thrilled when she grabbed a tampon from the dispenser and inserted it. She would get to save all of it. Keep it in a jar underneath her bed, like a secret piece of art. A secret piece of herself.

But a few hours later it was brown. The liquid had dried and the iron had oxidized.

Her heart was broken and her abdomen throbbed from cramping. And when her period stopped after a year on the outside, she felt as gray as the rest of them. She couldn't stand the thought of looking like the outsiders, lifeless and desolate. Doc Church in Megaton offered little help.

"Eat something. You're too goddamned thin, Gabby."

But the food made her sick. The molded taste and the gritty texture. She had survived somehow on old world cans of pork and beans and boxes of dandy boy apples. The only wasteland food she tolerated was mirelurk. And it was certainly not the cheapest or easiest to obtain.

She tried to eat better. She really did. It wasn't that she wanted a child. She doubted she would survive the birth on the outside. She wanted what her period meant—maturity, potential for life. It was part of her being and her grasp of being 'healthy.' It was evidence of the warm red still pumping in her veins. It was normalcy. She felt tainted without it, like her heart was missing from her chest.

After her father died, she started overeating. Each meal felt like her last. Squirrel was her new favorite food. Grilled on a stick with pieces of crunchy mutfruit. Stewed in a chili with ground ant and pork and beans. All with potato crisps and deviled eggs on the side. She washed it down with beer or bottles of Nuka-Cola. Or both. Charon would wait impatiently as her food digested before continuing on. He had been bothered by her picky eating before, but her new gluttonous attitude was hardly efficient for their work. Whatever work that may be.

Vodka was a fine enough drink to wet her lips, even if it burned the broken skin. Her bony fingers tapped incessantly on the neck of the bottle, still anxious from the super mutants on their way to the ranger compound. It always took too many bullets and she was still unsteady with a gun. Charon had crouched behind her, pointing where to shoot—his elegant hands directing her. Gravel and cement ripped holes in her pants as she crawled through the rubble. Her knees eroded and bled. The graze of a bullet froze her completely, until Charon dragged her around a corner by the hair. Bile spread thick in her mouth as loud gunfire rang in her ears, vibrating her joints. She didn't hear his footsteps, but the sight of him covered in blood and slated flesh shook her from the tumultuous haze. Her stomach turned, but she decided on alcohol as the remedy.

He was fidgeting with his gun across from her. It had been cleaned, scraped, thoroughly maintained, but he continued to play with it. He would glance in her direction every few moments or so before returning to his idle work. Vodka provided the warmth she needed, burning down her throat and lining her insides. The icy floor was too slow to suck away the heat gathering across her skin. Donovan's snoring echoed as white noise from the other end of the compound.

Gabby kept her eyes on Charon, watched him ignore her stare. Ghouls looked like zombies, that's just how things were. She had gotten used to their corpse-like features after several bed-ridden weeks in Underworld. And Charon was especially terrifying. She envied his large, but lithe frame, his overwhelming presence. The exposed muscles and tendons, the visible ashen bones, the stretched skin—they had hypnotized her at first. It was a flagrant display of his power within. And it was so _red_. His muscles, the tone of his scar tissue—red. The small patches of hair still sitting atop his head—red. She could see veins and tiny nets of capillaries. She felt malnourished compared to the embodiment of life that he was. His mere aesthetics made her want to quit sneaking and start fighting.

"If you keep bothering that, it won't heal properly."

She shrugged, only just then noticing her fingers pressing into the wound in her arm. Blood had soaked through the strips of fabric that substituted as gauze. The stinging reminded her of the super mutants, the grasp of the gray.

"If I poke at it long enough, maybe I just won't feel it anymore."

It was an internal battle. She wanted the vibrance of pain as much as she wanted to be numbed by it.

Charon glared.

"I did not save your life so that you could die from infection."

She mumbled something insignificant and fixed her braided hair instead, weaving her thick curls. Charon was being especially abrasive. They should have been sleeping like the rest of Reilly's Rangers. She was too shook up and Charon... well, Charon didn't voice his opinion one way or the other. He was too busy snarling at the smoothskin.

"Is there something else you want to tell me?"

His hands ceased their diligent movements and turned into fists against the ground. It took two hesitant breaths before he answered.

"No."

He was too tired for another pointless argument. She had much more energy apparently because she crawled over to him on her hands and knees, one arm limping.

"You got something to say to me, shuffler?"

What sick fucking thought was going through her mind to think that she could call him that? But he refused to play her game and kept his face as emotionless and flat as ever.

"Hey, you zombie piece of shit. I fucking asked you a question."

She shoved the gun from his lap and replaced it with her own body, straddling him and poking his still chest. Eye to eye.

"Answer me, you fucking _slave_."

And that was it. He gripped her arm with one firm hand and shoved her down with the other. Hot skin to cold floor. She replied with a swift kick to his jaw, hard enough to make it hurt. Make it count. She only felt fire when he slammed her face first into the floor, yanking her arms behind her back. It was almost comforting the way he laid on top of her.

"I am not your play-thing. Get your shit together, smoothskin, because next time you try this I will make sure you fucking regret it."

A cough. "I-I'm sorry. I just-" How could she explain it? How could she make him understand her? She wasn't exactly the best with words. Broken phrases. Mismatched allusions. He released his grip and let her fall. "-fuck it. Whatever. I'm sorry. I'm going to bed."

He watched her slump to the edge of the storage room and unfurl a bedroll. Charon was grateful when she first acquired his contract. She was naïve, from a vault of all places. Her bronze skin shined copper on her cheeks from windburn. A small silver cross dangled from her neck. She didn't even own a helmet before him. Twigs and dirt turning her wild curls into a bird's nest. She still didn't wear her helmet half the time.

He evaded punishment with her. Aside from her most recent actions, she was the least abusive of all his employers. The ones before wanted control, but this vaultie had other intentions that he was yet to flesh out. She did little to verbally expand on reasoning for it. He rationalized his sore jaw by labeling it "defense" and not the violence to invalidate his contract.

It took a few weeks in her employment for him to lose his previous feelings of comfort. Germantown Police Headquarters. That was where he lost it. At first, she acted appropriately. Stayed outside the gate and tossed in a few grenades at the super mutants stomping inside. But when they opened the decrepit building's door, she seemed to forget any tact. Room by room, spraying and praying. Her panicked face didn't stop her from continuing the same reckless path. Each wound was answered with a stimpak, leaving the bullets in to rub against her muscles as she ran.

They were stuck in Big Town for twelve days after that. Twelve awful days while she healed after Red, the barely competent doctor, dug the bullets out. It was a whole settlement of dumb kids just like her. They had no clue how to shoot their guns or plant mines. It was as if they couldn't bring forks to their mouths. _Useless frail smoothskins. _He had nothing better to do while the vaultie hopped around on crutches so he taught them how to properly defend themselves. She would throw in her two cents when Charon wasn't clear enough in his instructions.

Dusty was the only one he respected in the village. The two would sit watch every night, smoke cigarettes with few words spoken. He could breath, think, ease his tensions. It was nice to be so far out from the downtown. It was nice to be on the outside. Cold. But nice. Everything smelled better. The smoke from the fire pits and the dusty breezes. Grilled molerat and steamed tubers. It was more distinct on the outside. It wasn't muddled with the odor of crowded wastelanders and whichever insides had been recently released. The wind seemed to sweep away the bad and bring in the good.

The vaultie was finally asleep, mouth open and drooling. Charon wanted to understand her. He wanted her to stop grieving the loss of her father. He wanted her to be happy. Happy meant no more slurs, no more fights. Open road. Pleasant wasteland fragrances. As long as they avoided the small and few radiation puddles scattered around. Happy meant helping people again. Happy meant cautious, awareness. What could he do to make her happy again?

Reilly greeted them the next morning, handing them mutfruits and bottles of water. Charon watched the vaultie dig more food from her backpack.

"Who's your friend here, Gabby?"

"His name is Charon. Used to work in Underworld. 9th Circle."

"Ahhh, never did make it in there. I'm surprised you don't have Sydney tagging along with you," Reilly winked.

"Heh, uh yeah. She's pretty settled in Underworld. Good place to make money," she answered nervously.

"Long distance relationship?"

"Well, um... it wasn't really a_ relationship_ thing. Just you know.. um-"

"I gotcha, I gotcha. I'm not judging you, don't worry! Hit me up before you leave. I got caps if you've got data. And if you find yourself going north, there's a place I'd like you to check out. My Rangers and I will be heading west out of the downtown for a while."

She nodded as Reilly walked out, thanking her absent God that Charon wasn't the kind of man to ask questions.

Sydney was just a... few-nights stand. Reilly had caught them on one of those nights. Underworld residents were usually in the bars at 2 in the morning, leaving the coves in front of the Chop Shop nice and empty. Just as Sydney snaked her hand into the Gabby's jumpsuit, Reilly popped out of the clinic.

"Don't mind me, ladies. Just going to the bathroom. I'll be back in a few minutes, though."

Gabby groaned and Sydney dragged her to a storage room kissing her wide jaw and biting her neck. It was the bruised neck that kept Gabby around. Well that and Sydney's dexterous hands. And the tough girl act that wasn't really an act at all.

Charon had seen the two as well. He had been embarrassed by their shameless flirting inside the 9th Circle while he was stuck in the corner. He shifted his feet, tried to focus his hearing on any other conversation. Azrukhal watched the two women with a sick gleam in his eye, offering free shots. He was crossing his fingers that he would get to see some action and it disgusted Charon. Luckily the women left before any physical contact was made, much to Azrukhal's bitter disappointment.

"What a waste of fucking vodka, Charon," the old ghoul rasped out. "They don't know what they're missing, do they? I bet I could show them a thing or two." He laughed and Charon's stomach squirmed a little.

Maybe the vaultie missed Sydney. She was happy with her, wasn't she?

"Reilly wants us to see if we can find a place called Oasis. Ever been there?" Gabby asked.

Charon shook his head.

"Guess that's where we're heading, then."

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><p><em>AN: Don't think I've seen a story that dealt with Oasis. It's one of the more ethically challenging missions of F3 and New Vegas. Reviews are welcome! Even if it's just a thumbs up or down!_


	3. Chapter 3

_I'm sorry that the old world lost sight of you. I'm sorry that they worshiped nuclear power and not you, God. I tried to teach the Children of Atom, but they wouldn't listen. But why do we still have to suffer? All I see is the lack of you, Lord. Why have you left us such a dead earth? Why are we constantly on trial for the mistakes of people we don't even know? I am not like them, Lord. I am not like them at all!_

_ Did you take away my dad because of Silver? Is that my punishment for killing her? Answer me, so that I can redeem myself! Please, forgive me! You have to understand how terrified I was. I was so alone in a bright new world. I couldn't see anything but my dad. I couldn't see the distinction between right and wrong. I'm so sorry, Lord! Please guide me towards a better life! All I see is death, now. All I see is suffering. If you are really there, show me a better way. I want to be a better person but all I see is hell. All I see is sin. Where is the good? Where are the bountiful harvests? Where are you, God? _

Charon nudged her as they stood at Tulip's counter in Underworld, looking blandly over the clothing on display. Folded pieces of cracked leather, chunks of beaten metal. Hats and dresses that begrudgingly survived the fallout.

"I need something for my knees. They're always getting scratched up."

"Oh, I've got just the thing for you!" Tulip beamed and scurried to her counter, digging through the pile. Tulip would need to tailor it. It would take time.

"You can go if you want, Charon. It'll be a while. Maybe get some ammo from Sydney?"

No answer, he just turned and left. Was it so necessary that she send him to the 9th Circle? As if he hadn't been there enough to last a lifetime or two.

The yellow light of the aging bar drenched the room in a regrettably familiar pallor. Charon did not enjoy returning to his former work place. Azrukhal's dried blood on the walls did not satisfy him as much as it should have. It reminded him of the years-the recent decades he spent serving the old bastard. He knew the story behind the prominent holes in the walls, the scratches across the floor. There were more bland tales than exciting ones. And he preferred to remember none at all.

"Hey there, Charon. It's been a long time. How's Gabby?" Sydney chirped as she drummed her fingers on the sticky table. How could he begin to describe the grieving smoothskin?

"Difficult."

Sydney chuckled. "I don't doubt you there. Here for my wares, I assume?"

He nodded and handed her a list. A quick turn to her supply boxes before she carried on with the idle conversation. As he scanned the room, he noticed a few new faces in the crowd. A couple appeared desperate and numb, but one blue-ish decaying face sneered at him. Charon stiffed his back and replied with a look that had the other ghoul cowering.

"She's just not used to all of it, you know, out here." She shuffled through the cold rounds, pulling out packs of her shotgun shells, .44s, .308s.

"The Circle is a lot less treacherous without you. This new guy, Charlie, took over and I haven't seen his new guard toss Patches all the way across to Carol's. You're one of a kind, Charon."

He almost smiled, a small breath of pride filled his lungs. That was one story he didn't mind remembering. Chucking Patches clear across the atrium was an unexpected slip of his strength and with how livid he was to do something like that, the result was appeasing enough. Sydney put two crusted tubes of gun oil on the table and Charon offered a bag of caps.

"How like her to send you here instead of seeing me herself," Sydney mumbled. "She ever find her dad?"

"He's dead."

"Yeah, well. I know what that's like."

Charon stood from the table with the supplies and left the bar. He was uncomfortable to be in Underworld at all. Old events ghosted around him and the smell of the confined building was awful compared to the cool air outside. A crowd on the first level grew louder as he walked down the stairs. It was an argument between two women that would escalate into violence if someone didn't alleviate it. No one had a limit. No one wanted to stop the brawl. They just wanted to watch the fists meet face and bleeding flesh.

Charon stepped up because it was what he had been trained to do. Protect people. Prevent shit from hitting the weathered, old fan. It didn't take long for the crowd to disperse as he pointed his shotgun in the direction of the two angry ghoulettes.

"Separate and cool down."

And they did because when Charon speaks, everyone listens.

At least the ones in Underworld did.

For some reason, a certain human named Gabby didn't get the memo.

She wasn't even around to witness his oddly sheriff-like action. He looked into Tulip's shop and it was empty. Had he been in the 9th Circle long enough to lose her? No. He knew exactly where she was.

He pushed the door to Carol's open and saw her sitting at the table, stuffing her mouth with brahmin steak and deviled eggs and washing it down with a bottle of clean water. Remnants of her meal clung to her dirty cheeks. She looked up surprised and embarrassed. She had been rushing to eat so that when they shared a meal later, he would think she was getting better. Not constantly filling her stretching stomach.

"Hey," she spoke quietly through the chewed meat.

No answer. Carol walked up and took his order, smiling and returning promptly with squirrel stew from the hot plate.

"You do not have to hide your eating."

"I'm not," she answered, wiping her mouth. "You get weird when we eat."

"You eat too much. Slows us down."

She ate because the emptiness hurt. She ate because she wanted a fully operational body. She ate because it satisfied her to eat.

"_Fuck you_, Charon."

No answer. He continued to eat the stew. No expression when she ordered a bowl of it for herself. He didn't say a thing when she unbuttoned her pants to let her gut expand over it. She was still so thin.

"How's Sydney?"

"Ask her yourself."

But she wouldn't. She would avoid the 9th Circle and avoid her harsh stare because Sydney made her itch. She made her want to scratch and hide. Sydney was an unwanted memento of more pleasant days on the outside. Days she knew she wouldn't have back. Gabby missed her like an old gun. It was great and useful at the time, but no longer worked. So she let go. Even though she didn't want to. It was broken and she tried not to be sentimental. Knowing how close the relic hunter was burned Gabby's skin with desire. One more foolish night and maybe she could forget crippling pain. But she wouldn't. So she stayed away.

* * *

><p>She barged through the front door of her Megaton home, startled (but not visibly) to see Charon awake on the couch with a cigarette in his tight mouth.<p>

"You're bleeding." It came out like a statement of fact, no feeling or concern in his tone. It wasn't even meant to call her attention to it, but she brought a wobbly hand to the busted cheekbone.

"Oh hey. That's why that hurts."

"Found what you were looking for?"

"Lucy West is an ugly bitch," she slurred. "You... you would have appreciated my left hook."

Charon stood as she stumbled forward, burping into her sleeve. She rolled her head back along her shoulders and stopped to stare at his exposed arm. It hurt her to see him. Something knotted in her chest, gnashed beneath her sternum, and it was all because of Charon. She wanted to take a knife and slice along the cords of his muscle. She wanted to dissect his flesh and find the courage that greased the gears of his limbs. She was convinced that there was a secret cure to her pain that Charon hid beneath his surface. How else would a man like him persevere?

"Don't you get it, Charon? You're life," she rasped into his bicep, intoxicated breath warming the already hot man.

"I'm alive?"

"No... I mean, yeah you're alive, but you're life. This? This?" She pointed to the blood on her hands. "This is life. And you-" she dragged her index finger down the visible musculature of his arm. Along his neck and thick jaw.

"Life. You're life." She grabbed her head in her hands and banged it against his chest. He stayed silent, unsure how to react to her drunken accusation.

"It's life. That's what it is. And I want it. I want it because they're so much death."

"How have you lasted so long in this awful fucking world? Does God talk to you? Does he answer you? Do you know where he is?" She started sobbing and clutching his shirt.

"Where is he, Charon? Where is he? Why is he gone?" Charon watched her dumbfounded while she slunk to the ground. She pulled her hair roughly, frizzed curls tangled in her fingers. What did he have to do with life? What did blood have to do with life? You only saw it when someone was dead or near death or death was calling. He exuded death with each step. His decayed flesh and glazed eyes—death. His muscles were conditioned to execute, murder, and deplete. He was a grim reaper. How could she call him 'life'?

"Tell God I miss him. Tell God that I'm sorry about Silver. Tell him that I miss my dad, okay, Charon? Tell God that I'm sorry. I keep trying to tell him but he won't listen. He won't listen to me but he'll listen to you. He'll listen to you. Tell him I'm sorry."

"Let's get you to bed," he whispered. He pulled her up from the ground and inched her up to her bedroom. He had never seen her weep before. There had been tears, but her entire body hunched and choked as she screamed out what he later deciphered as prayer.

The next morning she was dizzy. Dizzy and heavy like bricks bouncing inside her skull.

Sink.

Fast.

Now. Vomit. Sick sick vomit in the sink. Painful throb on the side of her face. Stinging pain.

"Hey. Did you finally kick my ass last night?"

She didn't remember. The relief he thought he would feel never came, only a sick coil that he had somehow violated her. That those words she begged of him were not meant for his ears, or anyone's for that matter. She had treated him like a diary, like an object again. Not the man that he was, not the complex and emotional and _feeling_ man that he was. He was just a 'shuffler' to her. A servant of her needs and nothing more. She didn't ask things of him, she demanded and overstepped boundaries like a fool. She was just like the other employers he had been unfortunate enough to be subjected to.

Or maybe she was just a fucked up woman trying to survive in a foreign land. He only knew the broad strokes of her past, but last night he saw the giant gashes that had sent her spiraling out. Her father had abandoned her just like her God had. But she had been naïve to think she could hold on to such precious things.

On the outside, there was only the individual.

On the outside, there was only self-preservation.

On the outside, there was only the fraction of a second that could kill you or kill your enemy.

He looked up from the couch. She was walking out of the kitchen and she was only wearing her underwear. He turned away quickly from her naked body, though her image still burned. It was her legs that should not have surprised him, but did. Germantown Police Headquarters. Those twelve days. Her thighs were marked with dents and mutilated scars. It reminded him of the misshapen bodies of the more attractive ghoulettes in Underworld. The ones that flaunted their dilapidated forms with high-cut skirts and tight tops. The ones that had designs carved into the remaining flesh. Depending on the woman, it was either intricate swirls or daggered patterns. He wanted to stop remembering that place.

But she wouldn't let him forget his past. Wouldn't allow him to let go.

She looked down at herself and screamed, embarrassed again. He looked back. She threw a glass bottle at him, but he caught it and it just pissed her off more. Separate and cool down. At least she had learned that much.

* * *

><p>A trail of blood carved its way through the light dust on the ground. A rusty river flowed from the raider's chest, pooling briefly at her feet before continuing down the hill. She fell to her knees mesmerized by the richness. There was so much of it. So much life coming from something so... dead on the ground. Why couldn't she have both? The red and the life?<p>

"What the hell are you doing?"

She looked up at him dumbly before looking down at her hands, pushing on the raider's chest causing the blood to push out quicker.

"Do you believe in God, Charon?"

"No."

"I used to. But now I think it's just another lie I was told growing up."

* * *

><p><em>AN: I'm starting to read more things that -aren't- fanfiction because circulating the same thoughts isn't going to get me anywhere. Reading is good. I forget what books are like sometimes._


	4. Chapter 4

"I... I know this place. We can rest here." She pointed at four dark marks on a nearby rock wall and climbed the cliffs with Charon behind her.

There was a strange concave dip in the rocks with pieces of a rusted car frame still embedded in certain places. She had found it by accident, slipping from the higher edges and twisting her ankle when she slid inside the small cove. They pissed while it was still clear. The sun was setting and the clouds were too thick for moonlight.

The small niche provided a view of the field below, but it was more comfortable to lie on their backs and gaze at the rocks above their faces. They shared a small container of cram that Gabby had hidden the last time she was near the safe haven.

"Have you ever seen a tree before?"

He nodded though it had been so long that the image in his head was distant and foreign. As if it was just a dream and never existed at all.

"I've seen pictures of them in books. Paintings, too. I hope Oasis is real. I want to see what trees are like. It's weird to grow up and read about the world but not get to experience it. It felt like I was just reading myths and tall tales, you know?

"It's even worse now that I'm outside of the vault and I see the world for what it really is. Like, what does history matter anymore? Why bother learning about old presidents and artists when there's no evidence of them left? Like, how useless was it for me and Sydney to get the Declaration of Independence for some silly little museum in Rivet City? That document has absolutely no effect on the world now. None.

"The world before the bombs fell exists in tiny fragments. And people try to piece them together and revive a dead society. Ahhh, the Nuclear Holocaust of 2077. Wiping the slate clean. We've gone back to being cavemen, you know? Those bombs hit our planet's reset button."

Charon didn't remember much from before the war. Too much time had passed. The world was so different now that he had nearly convinced himself that those images of bright painted houses, shiny cars, moving pictures—that they were all just a fairy tale. His imagination created fanciful renditions of the old world. He liked to pretend that the group of Commonwealth slavers was a dream. That they hadn't created a work contract from his blood, brainwashing him to be loyal to the contract's owner. He had just wanted food. And they had lured him in, taking advantage of his fear and hunger. But it was useless to think about his life without their interference. _Deal with it. __Move forward. Stay afloat._

She woke to screams. A metallic din of voices and low hum of the radio. She felt Charon's warmth beside her.

"Ch-Ch-Charon? Wh-"

"Don't look."

His arm stiffed across her chest, holding her down. She heard dogs howling. A woman's voice yelling 'No! No!' between horrific yelps. Giggles and whoops.

"Raider party," he whispered in her ear. "Too many." He moved his arm back to his side.

And they couldn't escape either. Her secret little safe haven was now a prison. This was pure hell. This was a complete lack of God. The shrieks pierced her eardrums and dug holes in her skin. They burrowed beneath her fingernails. The laughing made it worse, the cheers made it more unbearable than it already was. She smelled smoke.

There must have been dozens of them. The laughing ones. The screaming one—just one. One that was being tortured or raped or violently harmed because the sounds she made caused Gabby to shiver and cry. The two grim witnesses spoke in hushed voices.

"Why is God letting this happen? Why isn't he stopping this?"

"There is no God. This is it."

It didn't make her feel better, though she doubted it was supposed to. Is this what apostates witnessed? Is this another punishment for rejecting God? Hah! As if God was torturing _her_ and not the woman down in the crowd of raiders. As if the world revolved around _her_ and not the dim sun. She was being foolish, but the noise sped her breaths. Their silence was selfish, but life-saving.

She was alone. Disconnected. A grain of sand. The scraps of metal and cracked rock surrounding her closed in, suffocated her. The cold dead world was cloaking her in a coffin. The weight of it all pushed in her chest, broke what little spark she still held. The gray spider-webbed across her body, trapping her for consumption. It caked on like mud. But her knuckles still grazed something warm. Something scorching. Charon.

She laced her trembling fingers through his bony digits. The creeping gray recessed by threads, unweaving its dismal pattern . So she squeezed his hand in her own.

"This is why I try to fight you. This. So I don't hear things like _this_ in my head."

He had been clenching his jaw, focusing on the grind of his yellow teeth before Gabby roused him with her hand. He wasn't crying like she was, but he felt just as sick. He wasn't shaking but he felt just as despondent.

"How would fighting take the sounds away long enough?" he asked, trying to get his thoughts on anything but the wailing. There was rustling next to him before he saw Gabby climb on top of him, dragging her nails down his left arm. He pushed her hard against the sediment ceiling, though they were still only a hair apart. The brunt made her cough, the gray almost disappearing. She wedged her hand against his abdomen, searching, searching, finding the soft point to burrow her finger beneath his ribs. He growled low and dug his teeth into her neck, biting too hard and forcing their cheeks together. He squeezed her waist and shoved her off, scraping her back against the jagged rocks.

"Fuck, Charon. You asked," she hissed quietly, her bitter breath on his face.

"Stop using me like that."

"I don't mean to... I mean, how do _you_ deal with shit like this? How do you deal with the nightmares?"

Most things were easy. Most 'awful' experiences were ordinary for him. It's just how things were. That's how he dealt with it. He didn't try to control it, change it—no regrets, just present and future. _Stay afloat._ When they slept somewhere inside a town or settlement, he was too exhausted to dream. Out in the wastes, paranoia kept you healthy. The times he would doze for chunks of solace... he had a few nightmares. Plenty, in fact. He would clench his fists, count his breaths to settle himself. Some of them wouldn't shake off so easily. Some of the nightmares, some of the experiences left evidence in his mind just as his deteriorated flesh was evidence of his ghoulification, immortality, and ferocity. It was something impossible to hide. The experiences were as embedded in his being as his physical affliction.

That isn't to say he wasn't effected by them. When his frustration thrummed a particular thread inside, he would find himself using his knife more. A gunshot had become less satisfying. Less effective. Perhaps they were more alike than he thought. But it was against enemies and threats. Why would he want to hurt _Gabby_? Why did she want to hurt him?

"I do not hurt _you_ because of it. I hurt _them,_" he grunted in her ear.

She took a deep breath, trying to pull the right words from her throat. The woman below continued her pleas amidst her captors.

"I like fighting, Charon. Idon't like risking my life and we both know I don't like killing," she explained as she pushed forward her dry, cracked hands.

"It helps me not feel... _this._ Whatever this feeling is that I have right now. I want to get it out of my system so I can think clearly. I don't want to hear or feel this woman screaming anymore while we're fucking stranded up here."

He didn't want to feel it either. He hated how the sounds of the crowd below contorted his gut. He hated this conversation. He hated her small sad face in front of him. He hated how she pled for him to fix her problems. He hated how she wanted more pain than was already eating her away. He wanted things to go back to normal—happy. Present, Future. _Stay afloat._

He was thankful when the screaming stopped and the vaultie in front of him sighed and wiped her tears.

"Fuck, it's cold," she muttered.

He wrapped his arm around her because he didn't want her to complain anymore. He wanted his affection to be enough to calm her, sedate her trembling body. They laid there, entangled, waiting for the party to collapse into a field of hungover sleep before they sneaked away.

* * *

><p>It started with a smell. Through the maze of rock faces and pebbled walkways, a fragrance tickled their noses. It tortured Charon more than the smoothskin. It was a faint scratching against his brain, pulling at the tiniest hair of a memory of a memory. It tormented him more when they reached the first patch of green grass. Small blades of fresh life.<p>

Gabby was speechless. She tripped over her fervent feet as she sprinted through the carved path in the rocks. She saw Durer's carefully defined leaves sprouted on tender limbs. She saw rich organic greens by Titian. She saw Rubens, Courbet, and when she stepped inside she discovered John Everett Millais.

"Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, Charon." She had found Eden. She had found the paradise she was taught, the source of the stories she read. A wave of enlightenment washed over her skin, washing away the doubt that had sickened her. She understood everything now—the color images of the world's art history, the books on plant biology (the bizarre sketches of a sprouting seed), the hidden nature of her Lord God. Her true King.

Charon waited, baffled by her change in voice and posture. He watched the strange exchange she had with the old man dressed in brown rags and twigs. She was eager and smiling. He had never seen her smile so wide and cheerily before.

Her God had been waiting for her. He had sent angels to greet her. She rushed inside, gripping Charon's hand.

"This is it, Charon. This is Oasis. God isn't dead. He's here," she beamed.

Her words crumbled his heart. She didn't understand. What would God be doing in the middle of the Capital Wasteland? What would he want with a cult of crazies dressed with tree branches? This wasn't safe. This wasn't right, but her _smile_. It appeared frantic how the dark circles beneath her eyes traced down her high cheekbones to the sweet lines of her curved lips.

"I want to meet with _him_, too!" she begged the old man who called himself Tree Father Birch.

"To meet him, you must undergo the Ceremony of Purification. Once that's complete, you'll be able to speak to him."

_I confess to almighty God, and to you, my brothers and sisters, that I have sinned through my own fault, in my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done, and in what I have failed to do; and I ask blessed Mary, ever virgin and all the angels and saints, and you my brothers and sisters to pray for me to the Lord, our God. _She murmured among the group of Treeminders, without second-guessing the choice of title for themselves. _Drink the sap, the blood of the Lord, our God. Wash away my sins, Lord. Forgive me and purify me to be in your presence so that I can hear your words. Please, Lord. Purify me. _When her vision blurred, she saw Cezanne, Monet, Cassatt. She saw the geniuses of the past expressing the eternal gift of God before fading to a floral sleep.

* * *

><p><em>AN: As if my character doesn't hate me enough already, I considered giving her horrific pollen allergies. But I don't think I can be that much of a bitch (though I was very tempted). Please review and tell me what you think of this chapter! Or all the chapters! Or my general ability to reorganize the alphabet in particular ways!_


	5. Chapter 5

What did it mean to know the earth? She thought of Dutch painters so obsessed with the heavens that their skies were more articulated than the land below, the surface they walked on every day. She thoughts of the true Latin American artists with their eyes on the ground and replicating each pebble and bounce of light. _You create what you know_ and she picked through lists and notes in her mind, trying to pull out what she did know—if anything at all. Her world was constantly morphing.

She saw olive green squeezed from tiny tubes. There was cobalt and chromium. Tiny strokes of veridian and sap. The brief touches of ochre and umbre only emphasized the brilliance of the greens surrounding her. It was lush and smooth with delicate funnels channeling water through the small blades. The small leaves that had broken from the tree limbs were sponges of water and light. To her right, she saw a plant with pinnate venation, splaying its wings to the humid air. She learned the earth for the first time.

She didn't want to move from her garden bed. She wanted to smell the pollen. She was Mary Lennox. Dead parents. Forced to live in a dusky moor. And here she was in her secret garden. She dug her nails in the soil, grasping for the magic she desired. It was rich chocolate in her cuticles. She wanted to live there with Charon forever. He would wake to the glory of God and bask in his holy love. He would be cleansed of his sins and drop to his knees before the Lord. He would fall in love with her and thank her for bringing him out of his bitter shell. They would join their bodies in sacred unity—make love in the yellow sunlight sprinkling in through the thick leaves. He would finally understand her.

She would let go of her father, allow him his eternal peace. She would forgive him. She would thank him for putting her needs before his for so long. She would always miss her father, but the grinding pain in her gut would dissipate. She would finally understand him. And she would let him go. The trees above her didn't sway like she'd read in stories, but they shook and shivered in the wind.

There was no way she was going to tell Reilly about this place. It was her secret, the secret of the small group of people. They would only leave to trade, hunt, do the necessary things to protect their paradise. They were God's chosen ones. They were the meek, the blessed, the deserved. They would flourish the way God intended. The bombs had truly restarted the path of life on the planet. It went back to Genesis 1:1. Here she was in the private garden of Eden, vowing to never eat the forbidden fruit.

Distant raspy breaths stilled her daydream and rolled her body over. She dragged her body through the thick grassy mud, limbs still weak from the sap. She felt the ecstasy of St. Teresa.

Odd. The coughs came from the tree. She crawled to the other side, jarred at the sight of the source.

"Glad to see you're finally awake. I can't believe they made you do that stupid ceremony," the tree-man choked out between labored breaths.

"They listen when I talk, but they don't hear. Know what I mean?"

She sat dumbfounded, staring at the large orange eye protruding from the bark. A ghoul-like mouth moved just underneath. Was this a demon? An anti-christ?

"God?"

A strained wheeze escaped through the chunks of broken teeth. "Now don't tell me you believe them! I like to call him Herbert. But his name's really Bob! Just a tree that would ride around and grow on my head. He don't speak much, though. Eventually, he got bigger than me. And then I pretty much ended up inside."

"What's going on?" Where was her God? Where was the holy light? Was this the sick serpent tempting her to taste sin?

"I had you brought in here to ask a very simple favor," he coughed. "Would you please kill me?"

She jumped back in horror and disbelief. Perhaps this was the messiah, asking for prophecy to be fulfilled.

"Kill you?"

"You see, I've been stuck here for over two decades now—rooted right into the ground. The only friends I've got are Bob and those weirdos out there that think I'm a god."

She glanced around the fenced garden, noticing rings of glowing fungus and chemical pools. Treeminders. Tree Father Birch. The twigs. The robes. The unfamiliar scripture cited during the ceremony. The roots beneath her fingers were thick and suddenly everything flashed gray. The grass wilted, the tree limbs shattered like glass. She wanted to pick up all the tiny little pieces and glue them back together. Make a mosaic of her false utopia and carry it on her struggling back.

"You're just a tree," she whispered solemnly.

"I've been feeling rather 'spread out' lately. I think Bob's kinda shoved my insides around some. It's hard to tell where everything is, but it's always that way with someone's insides, isn't it?"

She nodded and poked at the soil. He wanted her to find his heart and destroy it. Put him out of his misery. His name was Harold and he was from the west coast. He had come in contact with F.E.V. similar to the super mutants. Forced Evolutionary Virus. And here he was in a canyon, consumed by a tree and turned into a tangled network of plant matter.

She was beyond embarrassed, beyond flustered. A naïve imbecile. It was all fake. Fake fake fake. The first nineteen years of her life was a simulation. A fucking parody of existence. She sulked out of the garden, eager to shake her body free from rage.

* * *

><p>Charon watched the Treeminders carry Gabby's body through a wooden gate, assuring her safety. He tensed and fiddled with his knife, jumping it through his fingers and spinning it around. The small cult seemed harmless, but he didn't trust them. Not with his fragile smoothskin. He was left with little choice when she willingly drank the 'sap' that could have easily been a mix of chems and the fungus he saw sprouting around. He worried about her hallucinating. A woman like her wouldn't be able to let her mind free long enough before spiraling into a bad trip.<p>

A young girl with dark skin approached Charon.

"Hey! You kind of look like Harold! Only without the tree. Maybe you know him?"

First he was a little annoyed Not every ghoul knew every other ghoul. Then curious.

"Who is Harold?"

"The Great One. He made all this! Well, actually Bob made it. But Harold and Bob are kind of stuck together."

"And Harold is a ghoul?" he asked, wondering what Gabby would think when she woke up.

"I don't know. He kinda looks like you. Most of his body is wrapped up in a big tree. Sometimes I like to curl up all cozy-like in his roots when I have a bad dream. He tells me great stories, too! We talk about what we're afraid of so we don't have to be scared anymore."

Leaf Mother Laurel shooed away the young girl, asking her to leave the man alone. She didn't want this Outsider to know too much about their god. He may have accompanied the one Harold asked for, but he had yet to drink the sap and submit to the teaching of their divine.

Every second that Gabby was behind the wooden gate, Charon ached. He knew her bright eyes would be destroyed by the sight of the thing inside. Because it wasn't her God. It wasn't what she was looking for. It was another ailment to her illness. He paced. Watched for yao guai and raiders with Branchtender Maple. It was all too suffocating. The life within the trees and plants were too surreal and familiar. That memory of a memory coaxing discomfort from his fingertips. The odor of the plants scraped his insides and caught his breath. He would prefer cold nothingness over smothering greens. The tall cliff walls pushed him down further. _Wake up, Gabby. Come back. Take us out of here._ How could he yearn for someone only meters away?

She hobbled out of the gate a few hours later, mud icing her hands and knees. He directed her over to one of the far corners, away from open ears.

"It's all a lie, Charon," she cried and explained to him the details of the Treeminder cult.

"I was reborn the moment I stepped outta that vault. Light blinding me and shit. And not reborn in some spiritual way. I had to relearn the entire world again. I was a fucking infant crawling to Megaton. But I still have all my memories from the vault! They stick onto me like leeches and I can't let it go.

"Gravity is so much stronger out here. It just sucks you down. And that's all there is. That's it. No God, no life, nothing. And it's nicer to some than others, but fuck, Charon! It's beating the shit out of me. And I can't keep asking you to pick me up. It's my problem and I need to deal with it. But fuck, Charon. You're all I've got." She went from beating her fists into the ground to breaking her knuckles against the tree trunks. Charon wrapped his arms around her, preventing her from mangling her hands anymore. Blood dripped from her broken skin and soaked into the dirt.

He didn't know what to say. Wasn't quite sure how to calm a woman after seeing her severed again and again by the harshness of the wasteland. So he held her while she sobbed, squeezed tighter when she tried to squirm away. He held his cheek against the side of her head, but no words tumbled from his dry lips. He let go when her breaths returned to normal and her weeping silenced.

She faced him and kissed him heavy. A brief sensation of gummy lips. "Thank you, Charon," she whispered and before he could react or push away, she had turned back around to rest.

* * *

><p><em>AN: I know it's a short chapter, but it's the second part of the last one. I just get so excited and update too quickly. Reviews are welcome as always! Always and forever!_


	6. Chapter 6

Any composure she held before was lost when she woke from her nap. Pins held her to the ground, sucking her into the soil. _God is dead._ Vines snaked around her neck and chest.

She counted her breaths.

Counted the seconds.

Got lost in the numbers.

Gravity was approximately negative nine point eight meters per second. The acceleration of her descent to the burning core of the planet. Stronger the lower. In Germany, they used a straight ten meters per second. Germany seemed like a nice and even place. Great engineering. Blunt and beautiful sounding language. The home of many geniuses. So the books told.

What had she been thinking? Gravity was not stronger on the outside. Gravity was a lie. Germany probably never existed. Nietzsche, the clever prophet, was never born. God could not be dead because God did not exist. There exists no such thing as God. History was a myth. Woven arrangements of words designed to develop perspective. Oasis was a mirage, a rouse to the hungry. Those that craved fulfillment of the soul were left famished.

What did it mean to have a soul? Some intangible orb of consciousness that floated in her gut. That was where she assumed it was. That was where she felt all those feelings she had. That was where they started, at least. Then it spread like fungus, popping up and transforming her silhouette from soft edges to harsh agitated lines.

Her soul was a metamorphic contamination.

A virus that always regrew from the frustrating thrum of her dismal habitat.

The faces above were blurry and congealed.

Mathematical. Logical.

Unattractive asymmetry.

Gnarled proportions.

The faces stabbed her repeatedly, dirty hands attempting to extract that soul she hated. The soul she was afraid to let go.

Denial.

They pulled dark bloody ropes from the location of pain. _No! Don't take my blood! It's mine! It's mine!_ But more dirty hands held her face down, covered her mouth. Her own hands were being pulled.

Fingers twisted one by one.

Sharp pressure on her palms.

Then bound so tight that they were useless.

The rope still tugged until she couldn't breathe anymore. Coughing and crying. Wailing unanswerable questions. She had no one to blame. _No god. No gravity. No father._ No creator to speak of. The more she sang her mantra, the more she resisted the pull of the soil. _Nothing. No one._

Gray. Her world had always been gray. Values ranged, composed, contrasted. _But there was the red_. The stark application of red in her field of vision. She reached for it with her wrapped hands and pulled it close to her heart (the strange organ that refused to stop beating). The filter for her damaged soul.

Plateaus of uneven skin. A large warm vessel expanded as she contracted. It contracted as she expanded. It scorched her and cauterized the wounds. It held her gently. Such sweetness from a world so ruined. The untainted anomaly. The exception to the rule. Red. It was a strange obsession to have with a color. A mix of absorbed and reflected light. A ripe blaze of combusted calcium.

Then she saw the green behind the large source of red. It was a vivid illusion of euphoria. Yanking her further up from the earth's grasp. Unimaginable brilliance pulsating rings of light. She looked for the magic again. It was an explosion of vocabulary and allegory she had read on yellowed pages in a cold gray vault. On a cold gray bed. _No god. No gravity. No father. Nothing. No one._

She pushed away the red and threatened to burn the green, turn it all to ash like the rest of the wasteland. What was the point of fantasy? Why fucking bother? Fantasy didn't save lives. It didn't heal the sick or feed the dying. Harold was a mutation of old war illness. He was an abomination. The only way to move forward was to utterly desecrate the past. Burn the bibles, qur'ans, torahs, vedas, the popol vuh. Burn history, art, philosophy, science, technologies. Burn them and start over like the cavemen they were supposed to be. Destroy the fossils, paleolithic sculptures. The only way to move forward was to _just let go._

To evolve she also needed to forget her first years of schooling. Forget simple arithmetic, signs and numerals. Forget the alphabet. Eat each letter one by one. Q seemed rather tasty, but Z had zest. A, B, and C were bland (which was expected). Y tasted like packaged vault unmeat. E was salt. It wasn't enough for her to forget literacy. She wanted to forget words. She wanted to forget distinct verbal communication. The twitch of vocal chords and guttural noises—forgotten. She thought she was reborn when she exited the vault, but that was just another falsity.

Her skin shriveled and receded. The jagged nails on the tips of her thin fingers seemed to grow longer. The plump flush of her cheeks diminished into shallow residue. Her eye sockets bruised and sank and her eyes dried. Her skin turned into a brown latex suit, two sizes too small, exposing weary bones.

She took a bundle of steel wool in her bandaged hands and scrubbed her muscles. The reflexes and intuitions were burnished and shredded into remnants of inappropriate anatomy. They became meaningless and indescribable responses to outside stimuli. She demolished the intrinsic nature of her flesh and fiber. She beat her bones into dust.

Each cell of her body deteriorated and reproduced—a continuous flux of life and death. She broke down into the most simple of substances. Simpler than cells. Simpler than atoms. Simpler than vibrating strings. Each piece was unique and incomparable. They acted the way they were destined to act, not how she desired. She was merely the membrane casing, a loose chicken-wire frame. She fragmentalized into perceptions and appetites. She was a series of actions and consequences and reactions and undetermined effects for irrational causes.

The pieces never touched. Always separated by a thin sliver of negative space. They glided and meandered inside their fencing. Their paths were certain and never questioned. The pieces queued up unwavering and spun like broken gyroscopes. The membrane casing tripped and tumbled, but the billiard ball-like pieces stayed within their defined roles. Balancing and finding North. They maintained proper orientation regardless of their shabby framework.

It was a collision between multiverses. Quarks nudged each other awake, rolling groggy to a new day. Fireworks of annoyance and frustration introduced life. Hadrons compiled into atoms. The atoms worked grudgingly in assembly lines, constructing molecules and chain reactions. Another long cycle of activity.

She tried to recreate her identity. But when she would skip a step (paint the tissue before the bones were built), her world would fall away. The failures only made her stronger, more accurate. She blew bubbles in the hard, spongy marrow and watched them pop and hollow. She layered her bones with sheets of carbon and iron. Her organs were a hodgepodge of chemical equations and ions. An entire chemistry set nestled beneath a ribcage. Her muscles were comprised of cords of permanganates, metallic and variable. She laid them evenly, binding them with anxious scrutiny. Tendons attached like carving putty. She reinserted what little fat she retained with injections of lithium. The element would slowly seep into her system, calming the storm. Her skin was copper, as it always had been. Malleable and dangerously conductive. Her hairs sprouted like the grass around her head. Keratin.

Her brain stayed hungry. She refused to feed it the regurgitated mess of her old life. It needed truths and facts, tested and evaluated outcomes. It needed the certainty of her pieces. The ones that always knew their way around her insides. _It's hard to tell where everything is_, but they knew, the tiny substances.

Her eyes no longer saw chunks and blurs, but distinct shapes and three dimensional objects. She needed to remember her reconstruction. She needed something permanent to mark the true rebirth of Gabrielle. No, she couldn't use her Christian name any longer. She would have to find something new and more fitting to the steely woman she created from the clay and glazed like poisonous ceramic.

But her hands were still bound. She slammed her face into the rock wall, hoping to loosen a tooth. Tonguing an empty pocket would be satisfying. She dislocated her jaw instead. Gray faces ran to her, followed by one flash of red. Rough fingers in her mouth before she could explain.

"I can't forget this. I can't forget this," she mumbled.

Charon kneeled before her, finally seeing light behind her glazed eyes. He had wanted her to see the wasteland for what it was, but he did not expect this reaction. Days of shrieks and sobs interrupted by hours of silence. Each time she would walk quietly to the outhouse, the Treeminders were fooled to think she was healed. But Charon saw that she was on auto-pilot. Her body was guiding her, not her mind. She would look at people and shrug, thoughts somewhere far away. Leaf Mother Laurel tried to feed her, but she clenched her jaw tight and refused any food or water.

They held her down during the more violent outbursts. Bloomseer Poplar was the only reason they didn't kick Charon and Gabby out of their home. The soothsayer saw the troubled cloud in the woman's mind, and she also saw it dissipate into something new. A long and difficult journey was ahead for the wanderer, but the results brought life back to the dead land. She refused to see the savior of the wastes in danger during her heart's transformation. Tree Father Birch did not agree, but because Gabby drank the sap and spoke to Harold, he couldn't rightly send her on her way.

Charon was infuriated to be stuck in that claustrophobic hell-hole waiting for her to snap the fuck out of it. At least that was how he felt at first. Toward the beginning of her breakdown, Poplar tried to calm the woman. Charon watched as the soothsayer rubbed her hands across Gabby's stomach, squeezing at nothing. _I am cleaning her chakras_, the old woman said. Branchtender Linden, a former member of the Brotherhood of Steel, adjusted the bones in her hands and braced them to heal properly. His smoothskin cried and kicked until he towered over her, worried and puzzled. Then she gripped him, breathed him deep, murmuring in a tongue he didn't understand. She softened to his touch, rubbed her hands up and down his back, braced fingers tugging at his stale shirt. She nuzzled his head and rubbed his lips with her own. He replied with sugar-coated longing. Their sour breaths mixed with honey-like intentions. Tongues licked each other's acrid nectar. He was thankful to calm her, even momentarily.

He made the mistake of leaning back, searching her face for explanation. But her eyes looked past him, tensing and nostrils flaring. Then she burst again.

"I'm gonna fucking burn this place!"

She shoved him back and she sprinted to the torches near the entrance of Oasis. Charon jerked her back, nearly dislocating her arm from its socket. It took two shots of med-x before she quietened. He regretted doping her up like that because the next day was spent with her unmoving from the thatched bed. He stayed by her side out of concern and not duty.

She returned to her body slowly. Ate. Spoke. Bathed. Laurel and Birch had both come to her on separate occasions and asked for help with the 'Harold' situation. Laurel had liniment to make Harold grow and Birch wanted Harold to stop growing altogether. She said she would think about it.

Charon was away from her for only a few minutes when she had slammed her face into the wall. He ran over as quickly as he could, long strides over twisted roots. Linden was already popping her jaw back in place.

"I can't forget this. I can't forget this," she mumbled.

He kneeled before her.

"Can't forget what?"

"I can't forget this change. I never want to be the person that I was before, Charon. I'm new. I am truly reborn. I'm not Gabby. I'm someone else, now. No god. No gravity. No father. Nothing. No one."

He had heard her chant that for hours while ripping apart the wires of her pip-boy.

"I can't breathe, Charon. Let's get out of here. Just for a little while." She looked at Linden and Poplar. "I'll be back, I promise."

Charon wondered if she would keep her promises anymore. She stuffed her mangled pip-boy into her backpack and Charon followed behind. The Treeminders gathered—some flustered and some pissed at her dismissal. But Poplar tamed their worries with her predictions of good things to come.

"Alright, Charon. Which way is south? I want to go back to the vault," she asked while removing the bandages from her hands.

He glanced at the sun and pointed. They pressed on.

They passed areas of old battles. The scarred safe-haven in the cliffs. The shacks they used to rest in. She didn't speak. They walked, eyes scanning the horizons. She sharpened her eyes and ears. Hands in fresh tracks in the dirt. Gun oiled and ready. _I find happiness in a warm gun, _she had heard Charon sayonce. She understood him more than she thought she ever would. He showed her how to track mole-rats, properly maintain her gun, see evidence in her environment. It was things she had noticed before, but did not pay much mind to. She absorbed it all with a starving energy. He was proud when she spotted a yao guai before he noticed its sleeping body. Two mines were laid as she stepped backward and fired. Charon flanked the wild animal as it charged toward the smoothskin. Most of the meat was too damaged, but they had enough to share between the two of them.

She still scrubbed her hands, but not nearly as vigorously.

She thought of different ways to break into Vault 101. Hot-wiring the entrance terminal. Hacking it. Knocking on the door, _housekeeping!_ C-4. Bottlecap mines. Concentrated microfusion cells. Incinerator. A bouquet of nuka-grenades. A blow-torch from one of the Pitt caravans. Wrangle some deathclaws and work them like oxen. Fat man. Nuke it all over again.

They finally stopped in Megaton, exhausted from their trip. Her mind was too busy to sleep, even in the comfort of her home. Charon observed her pacing with a beer in her hand.

"What will you do when we find a way inside?"

One deep breath and then she shrugged. "I know a way to purge the systems, though. Butch always talked about ruining the network so he could get out. Those walls wore on us. Hard."

"You may want to destroy it now, but you will regret it if you do."

Another shrug. _The only way to move forward was to desecrate the past._

"Leave them alone, smoothskin. Get supplies and get out."

He expected her to throw the bottle at him, but she finished it and threw it away. She was being too quiet, too calm. She pulled him to the floor and straddled him.

"Will you go with me?"

"If that is what you wish."

"I do wish that," she sighed. She leaned back against his bent knees and dropped her face in her hands. "They deserve to know there's nothing good in this world. I don't know why I want to go back there so much. Guess I feel like I gotta spread the good _fucking_ word. "

"There is good in the wasteland. You just refuse to see it." He ran his hands up and down her stiff arms.

"Well, I think you can understand why I'm not really seeing it right now."

She laid down at his side, hands brushing against each other. The smoothskin needed some time and he knew that, even when he tried to play things off so matter-of-factly. There could be pleasure in the wasteland. There could be smiles and contentment. He wanted her to know that she didn't need a god or a father or things, _ just him._ His gut twisted from his own thoughts. She drove him crazy but he couldn't let her go. It had nothing to do with the contract she held, but the invisible threads that tied them together.

"I still wanna burn down Oasis. Get rid of the lies there, too, you know?"

He huffed. She squirmed and tried to find a decent position next to him. Her words were coming out all wrong. All rage, but her face so serene. He was afraid of what went on inside of her head. There was an unreadable difference in her gait, an absence of nervous twitching. Eyes following nothing. She was floating somewhere else, somewhere dark. He didn't want to lose her. He saw the same look on her face as he did on a fellow ghoul in Underworld, two days before he hung himself in the atrium.

And she _was_ somewhere dark. She wanted to force her change on every other vault dweller. She didn't want to feel her pain alone. She considered killing everyone in it. Slit their throats. Headshots. One by fucking one. Consequences no longer existed. There was no after-life. She could sell them all to the Pitt. The caravans were always looking for 'workers'. The thoughts were cruel and she wouldn't go through with them. But her imagination wandered.

The look she (and that other ghoul) had wasn't about suicide—it was about ending something repulsive and passed its prime.

"You ever think about killing the ones that brainwashed you?" she asked while tracing the uneven contours of metal siding with her eyes.

"Doesn't matter. They are dead at this point."

"You're not the revenge type, I guess."

"And you are?"

She shrugged. _Maybe._

* * *

><p><em>AN: This was going to be longer, but what I wanted to add just didn't quite fit right. I'm such a fucking romantic writer. Reviews are appreciated!_


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